Integrating Spirituality and Religion Into Counseling: A Guide to Competent Practice

Book reviewed in this article: Craig S. Cashwell and J. Scott Young, Eds. (2005). Integrating Spirituality and Religion Into Counseling: A Guide to Competent Practice.     

A Review of Integrating Spirituality and Religion Into Counseling: A Guide to Competent Practice

Book reviewed in this article: Craig S. Cashwell and J. Scott Young, Eds. (2005). Integrating Spirituality and Religion Into Counseling: A Guide to Competent Practice     

Integrating Spirituality Into Counselor Preparation: A Developmental,Wellness Approach

Recent surveys of the general public and of counseling professionals suggest the pervasive importance of spirituality in the lives of all individuals. Yet, the infusion of spirituality in counselor preparation programs continues to be a concern. Incorporating spirituality within a wellness paradigm can help counselors and counselor educators value and address spirituality as an integral component of optimum human functioning. By distinguishing between religiosity and spirituality and operationally conceptualizing spirituality as a life span developmental phenomenon that is essential for achieving wellness, counselor educators can more readily incorporate spiritual issues within the philosophy of the counseling profession.     

The Ways Paradigm: A Transtheoretical Model for Integrating Spirituality Into Counseling

Research suggests that an emphasis on spirituality and religion in counseling has increased awareness but not translated into changes in practice. The authors contend that part of this challenge is the lack of a broad, heuristic model for integration that seeks to embrace the complex, fluid, and negotiated nature of spirituality and religion. Cheston's ( 2000a ) Ways Paradigm for teaching counseling theory provides such a model, leading to new perspectives on counselor education, research, and practice.     

Diversifying Feminist Theory and Practice:

Expanding the existing concept of victimization as a basis for all forms of prejudice as one means of expanding the base of feminist therapy. Such an expansion moves feminist therapy and practice away from a white middle class consumer base to a more raciallhy and culturally diverse base. It is critical, however, that a broad concept of victimization not be used as a means of denying the uniqueness of individual experience. The therapist needs to both respect and value clients' different racial and cultural values and help the client find resolution in a manner consistent with those values.     

Integrating Religion and Spirituality Into Treatment for Late-Life Anxiety: Three Case Studies

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is common in older adults and, although cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an efficacious treatment for late-life GAD, effect sizes are only moderate and attrition rates are high. One way to increase treatment acceptability and enhance current cognitive behavioral treatments for GAD in older adults might be to incorporate religion/spirituality (R/S). The cases presented here illustrate the use of a 12-week modular CBT intervention for late-life anxiety, designed to allow incorporation of R/S elements in accordance with patient preferences. The three women treated using this protocol chose different levels and methods of R/S integration into therapy. All three women showed substantial improvement in worry symptoms, as well as a variety of secondary outcomes following treatment; these gains were maintained at 6-month follow-up. These preliminary results suggest that the incorporation of R/S into CBT might be beneficial for older adults with GAD. Strengths, limitations, and future directions are discussed.     

女性主义认同:理论、研究与实践

在过去的三十多年中,女性主义认同发展理论一直是西方心理学研究中一个活跃的研究主题。女性主义认同是一种基于女性主义立场并自我标签为女性主义者的社会认同。基于Downing和Roush的女性主义认同发展理论,心理学研究者开发了FIS、FIDS、FIC等旨在评估女性主义认同发展阶段与水平的测量工具。研究表明,由于女性主义赋权女性挑战其生活及社会文化中的性别主义偏见,因此,女性主义认同发展能够有效地提升女性的自尊、自我效能感、主观幸福感,从而促进女性的身心健康。未来的女性主义认同研究应该重点致力于女性主义认同理论的完善和深化及研究方法论的变革,包括运用交错性范式与多元方法探讨不同性别、种族/民族、年龄、阶层等多元群体经验,使用追踪研究探讨女性主义认同发展的历程,以及致力于女性主义认同研究工具的本土化,从而推动我国女性主义认同研究的发展。     

Reliability Beyond Theory and Into Practice

The critical reactions of Bentler (2009, doi:), Green and Yang (2009a, doi:; 2009b, doi:), and Revelle and Zinbarg (2009, doi:) to Sijtsma’s (2009, doi:) paper on Cronbach’s alpha are addressed. The dissemination of psychometric knowledge among substantive researchers is discussed.     

Integrating Spirituality and Religion Into Psychotherapy: Persistent Dilemmas,Ethical Issues,and a Proposed Decision-Making Process

Religion and spirituality are important aspects of the lives of most psychotherapy clients. Unfortunately, many psychotherapists lack the training to effectively and ethically address these issues with their clients. At times, religious or spiritual concerns may be relevant to the reasons clients seek treatment, either as areas of conflict or distress for clients or as sources of strength and support that the psychotherapist may access to enhance the benefit of psychotherapy. This article reviews persistent ethical issues and dilemmas relevant to providing psychotherapy to clients for whom issues of religion and spirituality are clinically relevant. Ethical considerations include assessment, advertising and public statements, informed consent, competence, boundary issues and multiple relationships, cooperation with other professionals, and how to effectively integrate religious and spiritual interventions into ongoing psychotherapy. A decision-making process is presented to guide psychotherapists in their clinical work with clients for whom religious and spiritual issues are salient or clearly linked to their presenting problems.     

Counseling African Americans: Integrating Spirituality in Therapy

African American culture is rich with religious and spiritual traditions and practices that largely have been ignored in traditional approaches to counseling with this population. The purpose of this article is to describe the religious and spiritual dimensions of African American culture and to offer strategies for incorporating them into counseling African American clients.     

Making space: Spirituality and mental health

This paper was the Mary Hemingway Rees Memorial Lecture, delivered at the XXIst World Assembly for Mental Health, Vancouver, Canada, 2001. The author had recently completed a period of appointment as the New Zealand Commissioner for Mental Health. In this lecture, the author puts in a moving plea - as a survivior of mental illness - for considering both spirituality and mental health in terms of the experience of the self. She talks about the value of communication particularly by sharing experiences via personal stories. The author goes on to contrast communication and control, and to emphasize the importance of making space in order to accept our own and others' imperfections and vulnerabilities. Attention is drawn to the work of Baruk (1978, 1998, 1999, 2000). She also discusses the way in which mental illness can lead to spiritual progress, and ultimately to mental health. The original version of the talk contained further pictorial illustrations; for technical reasons it would be difficult to reproduce all of them here in the journal. Most of the illustrative material consisted of photographs by the author, including the two photographs that are reproduced in this paper.     

Translating the ICAP Theory of Cognitive Engagement Into Practice

ICAP is a theory of active learning that differentiates students’ engagement based on their behaviors. ICAP postulates that I nteractive engagement, demonstrated by co‐generative collaborative behaviors, is superior for learning to C onstructive engagement, indicated by generative behaviors. Both kinds of engagement exceed the benefits of A ctive or P assive engagement, marked by manipulative and attentive behaviors, respectively. This paper discusses a 5‐year project that attempted to translate ICAP into a theory of instruction using five successive measures: (a) teachers’ understanding of ICAP after completing an online module, (b) their success at designing lesson plans using different ICAP modes, (c) fidelity of teachers’ classroom implementation, (d) modes of students’ enacted behaviors, and (e) students’ learning outcomes. Although teachers had minimal success in designing Constructive and Interactive activities, students nevertheless learned significantly more in the context of Constructive than Active activities. We discuss reasons for teachers’ overall difficulty in designing and eliciting Interactive engagement.     

2003 Division 35 Presidential Address: Feminist Leadership: Feminist Visions And Diverse Voices

Although the theories and models on feminism and leadership exist, there has been little study of the intersection of the two. The literature on feminist leadership is scant. Few have defined it and fewer still have researched it. Thus, Feminist Leadership was chosen for my presidential initiative. This initiative kicked off a dialogue about feminist leadership that is summarized in this article. The article is based on my presidential address presented at the 2003 Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association in concluding my year as President of Division 35, the Society for the Psychology of Women. It identifies some challenges faced by women in leadership positions and by feminist leaders. It identifies the major issues that emerged during a web-based dialogue about feminist leadership. It discusses the intersection between theories of leadership and feminism. It ends with the lessons learned and implications for the future of feminist leadership.